• by adam.m , Michael Deibert , July 19, 2005

Set to compete with the established Black Entertainment Television (BET) and relative newcomer TV One, a new 24-hour channel focusing on news and entertainment from the African continent, The Africa Channel, will be ready to launch by the third quarter of 2005, its president said on Monday. The channel hopes to provide a voice and image in the United States for the little-covered region.

Partnered with Atlanta-based Cox Communications Inc. and supported by entities such as former United States Ambassador Andrew Young's company Goodworks International and individuals such as the National Basketball Association (NBA) players Dikembe Mutombo (born in Congo) and Theo Ratliff, the station, with offices in Los Angeles and Johannesburg, hopes to take bring a broad swath of African creativity to the United States, its executives said.

"The infrastructure for most of the daily television fare is most mature in South Africa (for our purposes); a lot of producers and directors in South Africa have cut their teeth in America and gone back to work there," said Jacob Arback, The Africa Channel's President and a co-founder. "The feature films and cultural segments, however, are going to come from all over the continent."

Among the channel's programming will be the investigative reporting series "Carte Blanche Africa" and two soap operas, "Generations" and "Isidingo."

With the now 25-year-old BET pulling in an estimated 79 million viewers and TV One (launched in January 2004) drawing 29.5 million according to the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, the Africa Channel says it looks forward to appealing to much the same market, but with a very distinct point of view.

"We think we're complementary (with BET and TV 1)," says Arback. "We're a very inclusive network with an appeal to a core audience--African-American, of course--but from an African perspective."